My Experience with Thinking, Fast and Slow
I read Daniel Kahneman’s classic work Thinking, Fast and Slow this week. This book has been on my shelf but has gone unread until now. It’s grounded in psychological studies of decision-making and perception. The book is about biases of intuition. I’ve been familiar with the book for several years as it’s part of our cultural zeitgeist. I bought it a few years ago, but it sat on my shelf until this week. After an inspectional read this week, I want to return to it over the summer or after the program.
As I process my thoughts, I think this week will be a regression to the mean – I feel anxiety about this post (Kahneman covers Regression to the Mean in chapter 17, pg. 175-184). Last week, I felt like I had a good idea that I wanted to explore. This week, I want to share my experience with the book and highlight what I’m taking away. This differs from my usual approach of reading and analyzing a specific portion. I will explore my experience and lay out the themes of the book. I want to test myself with this experiential approach.
Often, Kahneman begins a section or a chapter with little demonstrations to demonstrate System 1 and System 2 thinking. I usually didn’t have the experience he would describe. On page 50, he tells us to look at the words ‘Bananas’ and ‘Vomit.’ He says you will experience “with no reason to do so…a temporal sequence and a causal connection…forming a sketchy scenario in which bananas caused sickness.” [1] That didn’t happen to me. When he would show line puzzles that were meant to appear at different lengths in System 1 but, in actuality, were the same length (pages 27 and 100), I saw them as the same length. After the fifth or sixth time of not experiencing what he said I would experience, I began to question why.
Kahneman writes, “System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.” [2] While “System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it…” [3] These puzzles rely on our System 1 to explain them without much deeper thought. It’s automatic to assume the lines are different, and there is no reason to distrust – so we don’t.
My initial reaction to the fact that these didn’t trick me was that I was focused, which prepared me to be in System 2. My initial System 1 thinking was:
I was reading the book Inspectionally and trying to understand ideas behind it. Plus, I’ve seen similar demonstrations and been “tricked” by them. Kahneman describes my attention as turning up the ‘cognitive ease dial’ to ‘strained.’ He writes that cognitive ease is a dial between easy and strained. He writes that “cognitive strain is affected by both the current level of effort and the presence of unmet demands.”[4] My cognitive strain was already elevated because of the way I was reading.
After reflection, I don’t think that’s quite right. I don’t think I was primed for System 2 thinking because of my focus. Instead, because I know the book is about biases of intuition and have previously been exposed and tricked by similar stimuli, my System 1 response was to distrust. Intuitively, I distrusted and tried to see a larger frame. Then, System 2 kicked in and attempted an explanation. In hindsight, I could notice my mind flipping to System 2. I’ve been more aware of the phenomenon ever since.
Had I read the book in an elementary way or even a few years ago when I first bought it, I would have experienced it differently and likely been “tricked” by the demonstrations. Kahneman says, “The best we can do is a compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.” [5] I think I’ve learned to recognize situations in which these puzzles are likely.
Of course, this may all be an illusion. I’ve projected a nice story explaining why I felt I wasn’t “tricked” by these diagrams. Is my explanation valid or accurate? I don’t know. The book has made me skeptical of my reasoning power and initial intuition. I don’t even trust this is a good post (that’s probably my anxiety, regression to the mean, and other factors I don’t know well enough).
1 John 4:16-19 says,
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. (emphasis mine)”
Here is the challenge I am experiencing in a world where the best we can do is to learn to recognize situations where mistakes are likely: Have I learned to recognize situations where I can be unloving and unlike Jesus? I distrust the demonstrations because of prior exposure. Have I been exposed to God so much that as he is, so am I in this world?
I’m leaving this book feeling like I didn’t get enough of it. I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface on Kahneman, and I’m looking forward to learning more from reading your posts and our discussion.
I’m headed to Indiana this week for our denomination board meeting. I’ll be gone Thursday through Saturday. Pray for my travels and meetings. I’ll read and respond to your comments and blogs when possible!
[1] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Psychology/Economics (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), 50.
[2] Kahneman, 20.
[3] Kahneman, 21.
[4] Kahneman, 59.
[5] Kahneman, 28.
About the Author
Robert Radcliff
Hi! I'm Robert, and I'm seeking to understand who God is calling me to be in my community while helping others do the same. I enjoy reading, training for triathlons, and using exclamation points!4 responses to “My Experience with Thinking, Fast and Slow”
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Hi Robert,
I appreciate that you’ve taken the concept of bias in our thinking about reality and laid that against the reality of the “I am”, in whom we “live, move and have our being.” I know that my own thinking can trick me into either misunderstanding God’s identity or into assuming a false identity myself (often very connected thoughts).
May the Lord bless your travels and meetings!
Hey Joff, thanks. I’m wondering what it would look like to develop an apprehension toward my initial thoughts on God. In my denomination stream, Friends, we highlight that of God in all of us. A common mistake that my Quaker brothers and sisters and I make is that we can feel an idea and then feel that since I felt it, it must be from God. That has caused all sorts of mistaken thinking.
Blessing on your trip and patience for the meetings.
I’m fascinated with your reflections on “reading” the puzzles. This section brought me back just a semester ago with very similar concepts in Kathryn Schultz’s book Being Wrong. I wonder if consistent exposure to the illusions actually required less mental energy for you(35). it makes sense that our brain adapts to the way of least effort. (35) I love how you brought it all to your insightful question, “Have I been exposed to God so much that as he is, so am I in this world?” I sat and reflected on this, making me notice the spaces of his love through the day that would have gone unnoticed and unremembered. May the continued exposure and practice of His love became second nature and part of our system 1 intuition and automatic reaction.
Hey Jess! I wonder if there is something like: as I better understand how God has been at work in my life lately, I can better sense how God may be working in the near future. Then, spiritual practices (like the prayer of examen) could be the exposure that we need to adapt our brains and souls to knowing God!